[nre]

Honestly a lot of kids in the US/UK should have no problem finding a used desktop/laptop to play with if they're into that sort of stuff. Even a 15 year old computer can run Linux today and people are practically throwing those out.

[Cthulhu_]

I do wonder where old computers end up at (or where they should be taken to), they don't seem to have much at charity shops for example which used to be great for things like secondhand PCs.

I have an old PC at home still collecting dust (~10 years old I think), I need to clean its storage and get rid of it.

[camtarn]

Some charity shops (e.g. Oxfam) no longer take mains-powered electronics - my guess is because of the burden of testing them to make sure they're safe. Others will take computers but have various prohibitions - for instance, the Red Cross won't take computer hard drives (they say they're not legally allowed to sell hard drives containing software); the British Heart Foundation won't take gaming machines.

[niccl]

yeah, but...

It's not as much _fun_ as making an obvious circuit board do Stuff (tm). There's a very tactile satisfaction about making an RPi or similar go. YMMV, of course